


Tales from Many Fantastical Adventures

by inertCreator



Series: The Works of Green-cloak the Scholar [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 22:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5888314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inertCreator/pseuds/inertCreator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories told by a travelling mage during her travels through Skyrim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

These are a few of the strange tales I’ve been told or have witnessed first-hand during my travels of Skyrim. Whether or not they are factual is for the reader to decide.


	2. Tale 1: The Madness of Books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On why all things should be enjoyed in moderation, especially reading.

**Tale 1: The Madness of Books**

_As told by and elder Argonian who gave his name to be translated as Walks-With-Clouds, transcribed by the author:_

 “ Let it be known today that the reading of books breeds madness. I had not been taught to read as a young one, and had not learned until I had barely become an adult. I suppose I should be more grateful to my teacher, though it was only out of greed for more of her obsession that she taught me. Where some had skooma and mead, this woman had words. Her name was Macus the Mad, and aptly named so for her hunger for literature was as voracious as an orc’s for blood.”

“I had met Macus at an inn, just after departing from the caravan that I had travelled with as a young one. She was in need of a hired guard and I was in need of gold. Our needs suited each other and I was soon joining her in her escapades. In the beginning it was simple, we would travel from town to town. We were always searching, but for what I had not yet known. Every day we would go from shop to shop, house to house, inn to inn, where Macus inspected every bookshelf. She would always croon over titles as if they were her young and often bought four or five, whether from shop-keeper or no. At night we would stay at an inn. As far as I knew, Macus read her books until she collapsed from exhaustion. She hardly ever slept a full night.”

“I could never complain about her spending habits, she always had enough for food, a room, and to pay me for my services. At first I thought she was born wealthy, perhaps a cooped up noble that seeked escape from the normal. I scorned the thought but kept my mouth shut. And then she took me to a cave.”

At this Walks-With-Clouds sighs and there is a pregnant pause. I do not urge him further as he has a stricken look on his face.

“When it was revealed just how far Macus would go for a book, I wanted to leave then and there. We went into a den of robbers, she said there was hear-say of a book of ‘special interest’ to her in there. I thought I would be saving her hide the whole time but when we got there, when the robbers tried to grab her, it was as if the whole world had gone to light. All I saw were the bright flashes of fire-magicks and all I smelled was smoke and burnt flesh. When the air was clear, the look on that mad-woman’s face was....”

He pauses, shakes his head. There is terror in his eyes.

“All for a book. A measely book! Or so I thought. Come to find this was her income. She went into Dens, into Crypts, into Dungeons, and she killed whatever got in her way. She took anything of value and later sold it to merchants. As young as I was, this was something I had grown accustomed to with my old caravan but when she killed... it was obvious she cared not of her foe. No, when she killed there was only cold hatred in her eyes. She hated those who kept her from her prey.”

“Rather than fear her- for only those who stood in her way of getting her precious books were to fear her- I felt admiration and respect. She was a small woman, smaller than even I was at my juvenile age, however she could hold her own as well as anyone. I soon learned that I wasn’t much her body-guard as her pack-mule. I could have left, could have joined a band of warriors or became a sword for hire, anything really, but I stayed.”

“In return for my loyalty, she told me, she would further reward me with the ability to read. And so she taught me, over months of travelling, the skill. I was fascinated, there were worlds in these pages, heros in the ink, I was enthralled. I could have been consumed just as she was if it weren’t for our final excursion.”

“After three years of travelling together, Macus brought me to a small cabin on the side of a mountain. Inside was a young Breton woman singing to a babe. Macus whispered to me that the book she was searching for was just on that bookshelf. I suggested that we knock and ask the woman inside for it, but Macus was having none of it. She told me that she had asked politely the day before and the girl had refused. I knew that this was either a lie or delusion as we were miles away the day before, but I had learned not to pull Macus from her own reality.”

“But then things turned for the absoute worse. She broke the door down with a spell and glared at the woman. The stranger screamed a pitiful scream, she begged for her child’s life when Macus rose her cruel hand. There was no mercy in that woman, the mother was slain and the child left to cry in her life-less arms. Macus strode over her as if she were rubbish and went to the bookshelf. There were tears in her eyes and for a moment I thought she had a soul, but then I hear the whispers on her lips. ‘At last... at last I have you....’. She held the book up to me, a watery and relieved smile on her weary face. The book, would you like to know what it was? I thought it would be something important, a lost spell-tome, notes on ancient runes or something of the sort. But the book that she murdered that poor creature over, it was merely volume two of A Dance in the Fire. She had spent years, killed so many, over that book....”

Walks-With-Clouds sits back, his eyes misted over by memory.

“ I left her at the inn that night, but had to go back the next day because I’d left my lucky dagger in our room. When I opened the door I expected to see her packing for another expedition but instead she was in her bed. That accursed book of hers was lying on the floor, the volumes littered around it. She had read all of them in that single night.” “Macus was curled in on herself, her face peaceful. I’d just as soon would have thought she was sleeping were it not for how cold she was. After finally being able to finish that final series of her collection, Macus the Mad had died.”

“I immediately denounced literature. I stopped reading and writing, even now I only share this as a warning. Beware the lure of fantasy, for the false realities of fiction can turn a heart to stone and a mind to ruin.”


End file.
